


brother you will return

by romanitas



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 21:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9567953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanitas/pseuds/romanitas
Summary: Leia is nine years old when she meets a stranger on Tatooine, with sandy hair and familiar eyes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt on tumblr: "leia and luke find each other as kids au??? I love my space siblings"

When Leia is nine years old, she is traveling with her father across the galaxy when they make an unexpected pit stop. Bail insists nothing is wrong, but it’s better to err on the side of caution. He is _insistent_ in a way Leia isn’t used to about her remaining on the ship at all times. Naturally, it makes her want to leave the ship, but he’s apparently set up quite a few precautions. He doesn’t even tell her where they landed, though that one is easy enough to figure out once she bullies C-3PO into telling her. He gives in with exasperation, because even at nine she is very good at backing him into a corner.

_Tatooine._

She’s heard of it, like she’s heard of most planets, but it’s always been kind of boring from what she could tell. A desert planet, keeping out of the way of the Empire, which even to her young mind is irritating because no one should easily ignore the Empire. It must have been a really bad ship issue for them to force land here, and she wonders about it. Maybe her dad will tell her once they’re back up in space, since his mouth is screwed shut.

She sits in one of the chairs, kicking her legs and playing a game with 3PO, but something – something feels like it’s pulling at her. She’s felt it often before, a tug or a warning, instincts her father encourages her always trust. Leia looks up and outward, passed the walls of the ship like she should be able to see right through them.

“Your highness? Is everything all right?” 3PO asks.

She blinks, then turns back to him. “There’s something out there.”

The droid gasps a little. “Is it dangerous? Should we contact your father?”

Leia hums. “No. Not dangerous. Familiar.”

“Goodness, what could possibly be familiar about Tatooine?”

That’s the part that sticks with her. She continues the game, but her heart is no longer in it. The feeling is so all consuming, unlike anything she’s ever experienced. It’s a whisper, and she wants to leave the ship to follow it – which is stupid. Leia aches to follow the feeling, but she’s not stupid enough to walk away from the ship. She knows the dangers of being in the desert alone.

By the time her father comes back, he looks exasperated, mouth set in a grim line. “We’re going to need to stay overnight,” he says, his tone crumbling with how much he hates the idea.

“Is everything okay?” Leia asks.

He puts his hand on her head, switches the sour expression on his face with a smile. “We need to replace some wiring. It’s a very minor issue, but the Hutts control this planet, and I’m afraid they aren’t too happy about our landing here. I insisted we’re not invading on their sovereignty, but they aren’t the most open or trusting of – anyone.”

“Alderaan has nothing to do with Tattooine,” Leia says primly. The planets are so disconnected. She feels irritated on her father’s behalf.

Bail smiles again. “We have some business, I’m afraid. Diplomacy isn’t that easy. You know that, Leia.”

She sighs, dramatically. “Do we _need_ the wires now?”

“No, I’ve been informed by the engineers it isn’t strictly necessary, but the chances of greater error are at a far higher percentage than I’d like to risk with you on board.”

She huffs, but doesn’t argue. Instead, she tries something else, because the tug won’t leave her alone. “Could I see the outside?”

Bail’s response is so quick it almost startles her. “No. We need to stay on board. I don’t trust most of the people here. Mos Eisley isn’t kind to outsiders, and diplomatic propriety doesn’t matter as much out here. I’m sorry, Leia.”

She doesn’t fight it, but it bothers her anyway, all the way through bedtime. She stares at the ceiling, tangled in her blankets and wide awake as her ship hums with a dull idleness. She is going to drown in this feeling. It makes her angrier and angrier the more she has to ignore it. Leia is no stranger to falling asleep mad, but it’s never fun. She prefers going to sleep feeling accomplished, and when she told her parents this, they laughed before telling her they were proud.

When she wakes up in the morning, her chest still aches with it. It makes her irritable throughout breakfast. Bail seems to notice, and it seems to set him on edge. “Are you sure I can’t see _anything_ , father? I feel like I’m gonna burst.”

Bail looks at his daughter with so much contemplation, like he’s weighing a choice far greater than mild tourism. “We can go for a walk after lunch,” he says a few long moments later, resigned and worried. It’s so hard for him to say no to her, sometimes.

Leia notes these things about the way he agrees, but she puts them aside because she gets to leave. She gets to follow that tug, even a little bit, and it soothes her. He comes to her after lunch and immediately sets her hair into one single braid, pulling it out of the more complicated twists she wears while they travel. He insists on pants and a poncho, plain in color and design, and insists even harder that she keeps her hood up at all times. It all feels like too much overprotection, but she’s not about to argue and risk her chance of seeing the planet from more than just a window.

Bail holds her hand tight as they walk, and she clings to his fingers. There is something intimidating about the nature of this place, a lawlessness Leia isn’t used to witnessing but nothing she wasn’t aware of. Her eyes are wide, her curiosity too big, but none of it satisfies the ache. “Anything interesting?” Bail asks. He seems more amused than outright worried, but his brow is still creased with concern lines.

“Something, yes,” she says wistfully.

Bail takes her to the mechanic shop he’s been bartering with, and it’s the first time he lets go of her hand, but he does insist she stay near the doorway. It’s hard. He’s been insisting a lot about this outing and she itches to disobey.

“One moment,” she hears the mechanic saying. “I’m just finishing up with Lars here, _Senator,_ but do be patient.”

That feeling in her chest grows again. It’s been growing the entire time she’s been off the ship, stronger than yesterday, and part of her can no longer wait to leave this planet simply to stop it from existing inside her, because she doesn’t know what to do about it. She doesn’t know why she hasn’t told her father – except an instinct, a whisper to keep it to herself or she’d never figure it out, and her father always did tell her to trust her instincts.

It tells her to leave. To just step outside. Leia takes a look at her father, who’s just been pulled into a conversation with one of the mechanics, and she takes a chance. She leaves the shop and steps with a thrill outside into the sun.

And she collides with another child.

Neither of them fall, mostly because they both reach out to steady each other in almost perfect unison.

“I’m sorry! Are you okay?” she hears the boy ask.

Leia finds she cannot answer. She’s still gripping his arms, just like he’s holding on to hers, but she’s staring at him with an inability to look away. He’s scrawny, her age, with much lighter hair and bright blue eyes. The weirdest part is that he’s looking at her with a similar expression of shock, like he doesn’t understand why it feels like the world is about to explode.

“I’m fine,” she says finally, because Leia knows how to be polite when she needs to be, no matter how much she can’t stop staring.

“Do I know you?” he asks, taking the question from her mouth.

She goes to respond, _no, of course not_ , because Leia has never step foot on this planet and he’s clearly a local, but it feels like a lie. Instead, she does something her father would probably warn her against, but it feels important. “I’m Leia.”

The boy wrinkles his nose. “Luke.” He hesitates, but finally steps back and lets her go, like he’s now remembered how to be polite too. “Are you sure? Maybe I’ve seen you around.”

“I don’t live here,” she responds instantly, because she knows this boy. She should know him, but she has never been to Tatooine in her life, so it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t stop her gut feelings from telling her otherwise and she so desperately wants to figure it out.

“Oh,” Luke says, and he frowns, just as disappointed as her.

Leia reaches out, following an urge to touch his face, and when he just widens his eyes without giving any signs she should stop, she does. She presses her fingers to his cheek, like that’s somehow going to answer all her questions. It does nothing, except remind her that she just touched his face without preamble, and her embarrassment makes her irritated. Her default response to most things is to get annoyed, which her father likes to tease her about all the time.

They should be done with it all. A collision, no injuries, they both clearly have some sort of business to attend to – or someone to attend things with, at least. She hopes this boy has someone looking out for him. She knows the Empire makes orphans everywhere.

“Where are you from?” he asks, with a quiet wonderment, like he spends all his time thinking about other places and planets.

Even at nine, Leia knows she probably shouldn’t answer. “Alderaan,” she says anyway. She doesn’t want to stop talking. She doesn’t want to stop this moment.

“Cool,” he says, and he grins with a genuine interest. “I live here.”

“I figured,” she replies, with a mild dose of haughty. The next question finds its way out before she even knows she wants to ask it. “Have you always lived here?”

Luke nods, with a little sigh and sag in his shoulders. “I live on a moisture farm, since I was a baby. It’s kinda boring.”

“It sounds boring,” she says, and then her eyes widen, because that was _rude_ and hardly the appropriate response when she’s trying so hard to channel her father’s diplomacy.

Instead of reacting badly, Luke rolls his eyes. “I’m sure visitors from Alderaan have much more exciting homes.” There’s a hint of defensiveness in his tone, as though he hadn’t just half-insulted his own home, but Leia knows there’s a difference between making fun of it yourself and others doing the same.

“We have more water than a desert planet, so we don’t need moisture farms. Besides, you said it was boring first.”

“Doesn’t mean _you_ get to call it boring.”

“I’ve never seen one! I was going off what you said and what I’ve read.”

“Why don’t you go look at one then before you decide whether or not it’s boring?”

“Because I can’t leave when my father is still inside,” she huffs. She’s bickering with this strange boy and it should be another pinch of annoyance, but she kind of likes it. It’s fun. It feels like the way she should be interacting with him – which makes no sense, because she should be much more reserved in the face of a stranger. _Diplomacy_ , comes the voice in her head that sounds like Bail Organa.

“So’s my uncle,” he says. “This guy’s the best mechanic, if you can haggle a decent price for the parts.”

“My dad is good at arguing with people,” she says, beaming. “It’s part of his job.”

“What’s he do?”

Leia opens her mouth, catches herself, and closes it. “I’m not sure I can say.” She wants to tell him, mostly because she’s overcome with a desire to tell him everything. She feels like she could trust him.

Luke shrugs. “Everyone and their mother has a mystery job in Mos Eisley. I don’t usually come here but – I begged my uncle to let me go with him today. It – it’s stupid.”

Leia’s eyes widen. “No, tell me.”

He looks at her suspiciously, but she thinks she can recognize a similar urge his eyes to share everything too. “I felt like I needed to,” he admits, voice soft. “I woke up this morning and just thought – I need to go to Mos Eisley today. I didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t.”

Leia’s going to burst. “I felt the same thing,” she spills out, taking a step closer without noticing. “When I woke up this morning – I had to see this place. It felt like there was something here I _needed_ to find.”

“Did you find it?” he asks eagerly.

She blinks and doesn’t stop staring at him. Was it a person? Was it him? Did that pressing on her chest pull her out of the ship because of this boy? Even as she asks herself these questions, she knows suddenly the truth of them.

“I think so.”

He’s looking at her the same way, with the same questions reflecting in his face as he slowly comes to the same conclusion. “Me too.”

She reaches out, and he does at the same time, their fingertips touching underneath the hot desert sun. Leia folds her fingers over, pressing her palm to his. “Your hands are dry,” she says.

“Yours are too soft.”

“What does too soft even _mean_?” she grumps.

“It’s just what I feel!”

She squeezes his hand, mostly because she’s feeling huffy, but Luke surprises her by squeezing it right back, and then suddenly they’ve having a weird competition about it. He finally jerks away after a minute, shaking his hand out and making a face at her.

“What do they teach kids on Alderaan?”

Leia looks smug. She crosses her arms and rocks on her heels. “Lots of things. At least I’m learning lots of things. My dad lets me arm wrestle him. One day I’ll beat him for real, because I know he only lets me win so far.”

“My aunt and I play hand games, but it doesn’t really sound like the same thing.”

“Teach me one,” she says primly.

“You could say please.”

“ _Please,_ ” she amends, but with a huff.

Luke holds out his hands and instructs her to copy it. There’s something cagey in his expression, which only makes Leia more determined to follow his movements, even as they get faster. Her reflexes have always been good, but Luke’s are amazing, and she knows he’s trying to outsmart her to the best of his ability. It feels like an even match, but he could be a little better than her – not that she is ever going to admit so out loud.

They clap their hands together at the end of one game, and Leia feels almost out of breath from how exciting and fast it was. She was so into it, she doesn’t even notice the way some of the passersby are watching them out of the corners of their eyes. It was fast, she knows, but surely not anything unusual. When she does realize they’ve got an audience, it makes her feel uneasy. Luke, after one glance, is clearly feeling the same way.

“I’ve never gone that fast with anyone else,” he admits. “Especially with someone who never even played it before.”

“That just means I’m good at it,” Leia says proudly.

Luke grins at her, a little crooked. “What kind of games do you know?”

She’s about to start listing off all her favorites, when his name cuts through the conversation from a third party. “Luke!” they call out, and both children turn to look. “Five minutes, then we need to head out. Who’s your new friend?”

Luke glances at her, then back to the man. “This is Leia,” he says, then turns to her again. “This is my uncle Owen.”

“Hello,” she says, because etiquette calls for it. But now there’s a timer. Five minutes left before he leaves and the chances of ever seeing him again are so small. She can’t imagine having to come back to Tatooine. Her father already put up a fight for an emergency landing.

His uncle wanders off, staying in sight, but picking up a conversation with another local. Luke kicks at the sand, disappointment clear in his face. “Are you gonna be here a while? On Tatooine, I mean. Weird place for a vacation, but.”

Leia shakes her head, feeling her own disappointment seeping in. “We’re leaving by tonight, I think.”

Luke goes quiet, but so does she, and it’s not unwelcome. It’s companionable. Quite suddenly, she decides to lunge forward and hug him. He’s startled, but it only takes a few seconds for him to hug her back. The ache in her chest has settled into something quiet and content, even if it now feels unfinished.

“Leia?” comes her father’s voice, and he sounds mildly alarmed.

She pulls back from Luke and puffs out her cheeks, daring him to tease her for the hug, but he just looks a little sad, like he isn’t ready to part either. She opens her mouth, the words silenced when she feels her father’s hand on her shoulder.

“I thought I told you not to leave?” Bail says, reproachful.

“I’m sorry,” she replies instantly, even if she doesn’t sound all that apologetic.

“Come back inside,” he says, squeezing her shoulder, and though he lets her go, she can feel his eyes on her the entire time.

“I need to go,” she says to Luke. Matter of fact and mournful.

“Me too.”

There are a thousand more things Leia wants to say. Some of them are things she doesn’t even know yet. It doesn’t feel right to leave him now.

She takes his hand, quickly, and squeezes his fingers. “Bye, Luke,” is all she can mutter instead.

He seems to get it, just like he’s been on her wavelength the whole time they’ve been talking. “Bye, Leia.”

She pulls her hand out of his just as his uncle yells for him again, and the parting feels wrong. Leia watches over her shoulder the entire quick trip back inside the mechanic’s shop, hovering at the door and following Luke until he meets up with his uncle; he’s doing the same, and their stare is only broken by other people walking between them, cutting through the image in fragments, each passerby taking another piece until Luke disappears from her sight entirely.

She feels both hollow and wonder. She feels like it can’t possibly be over that quickly. She’s feeling a lot and trying to figure it all out.

Bail takes her hand, and it’s clear he has no intention of letting her go this time. She looks up at him and tries to look apologetic, even if she has no regrets.

“I should have known you’d leave,” he says, both resigned and amused, which is how he sounds a lot of the time when she does anything she isn’t supposed to. Her father is used to her fake apologies.

“I had to,” she replies.

“I know,” Bail says, and Leia scrunches her nose, because from the sound of it, he really does know. But there’s no time to question it, because the ship is done, and he’s hurrying them both away, anxious to get off this planet.

She’ll ask him one day. Just like she’ll find Luke again one day too. She can feel it deep and buried in her bones. It isn’t an ache this time – just a hum, a promise, a truth she isn’t going to fight. Leia is not patient, but she will wait for this until she’s ready to fight for it.

**Author's Note:**

> i love the space twins with my whole heart and soul give me all the alternate meeting aus


End file.
